


Deep State

by Tammany



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: A slice of life., Gen, M/M, The emminence grise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-10-06 22:08:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20514281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: Mycroft through Greg's eyes, attending to the needs of state. Can be read in light of current events. Or not. (grin) Your pick.





	Deep State

There was war in Heaven.

Well. No. Not precisely. Greg Lestrade, though, sitting silent on one of the big oak benches lining the shabby corridors hidden under London, where the government had hidden during WWII and from which it had never entirely crawled back out, was hard put to find a better description. He’d have sworn that half of London was crawling with rebel insects, of all hives and factions, all ruled by their own furious little queen bees, all prepared to sting each other to death for the privilege of being the one surviving hive in the territory, no matter how small that territory had become.

The figures he’d seen sweep through here today! The different departments sending their varied representatives to “deal” with Mycroft Holmes—regardless of what definition of “deal” was intended. Some were out to destroy him—shadow leader of a shadow government, “deep state,” civil service royalty. The eminence grise. Others intended to actually murder him. Fortunately he was well protected, his knights and bishops and rooks and even his pawns placed well. Assassins made little progress, barring a few who accomplished their own private parade to the grave. Some came ready to fall to their knees, begging support and alliance. Others to lay out terms of truce.

Through it all, the door to this most hidden of Mycroft’s hidden offices stood firm, like the door of a wardrobe into Narnia, or the portal of a Stargate. Those passing in passed into a distant land in which they held no power Mycroft chose not to grant them. They came away with only what he chose to allow them.

And now, the man behind this entire day. The set point in time, inescapable. The inevitable result of an inevitable cascade of bad choices by powerful people, going on for years. His figure was familiar. His blond frowse of hair well known. His portly figure a hallmark. He barreled down the dark, ill-lit corridor, so narrow and so plain compared to modern architecture, the paint chipped and stained and dusty, the concrete echoing… His body guards preceded him and tailed him, but there was just no room for them to flank him.

“If I were an assassin,” Greg thought, as the procession processed, “I could shoot him. They don’t even notice me here on this bench. No one has all day. No one is placed to fling themselves in the way. No one would see and push him out of the line of fire.”

He was armed. Legally armed. He could draw his weapon and end this problem, triggering a vastly different catastrophe. He would not. He knew his beloved. It would kill him to allow Greg to be arrested and found guilty of murder and sentenced to whatever ultimate death Mycroft could bargain on grounds of expedience and mercy—as he had argued Sherlock’s post-Magnussen assignment to a suicide mission in Eastern Europe. Mycroft would stand tall and trim, take Greg to the airport, embrace him, whisper one last time of love. See the airplane depart…

And Greg was afraid it was far too likely that that, and that alone, that would lead hours, days, weeks, months later to a final scotch and a polite bullet through the head. His Mike would probably even be polite enough to lay down a tarp, first, and align his chair against an easily cleaned wall, to make clean-up easier.

For that reason, if no other, he would not take out his gun. The Great Man would pass alive, unless Mycroft himself chose otherwise.

The dignitary and his entourage drew to a halt outside that mysterious little door. It was plain wood, probably cheap deal dating from the Edwardian era, painted British Racer green, grown dim with damp and dirty hands and humid breath of men and women pent up here in the tunnels, from days when barrage balloons hung over head and bombs fell on a waiting city. Outside was Anthea, with her desk—as dated as the door, a slate grey heap of steel and Masonite surface. She glared at them all, men and women (though very few women, and those women treated with ill respect by their fellows…). Her eyes alone said, “Why, look—a clusterfuck on foot. Whatever brings you here?” all sardonic disdain. She picked up the old-fashioned desk phone, dialed in a single number, and, after a moment said, “The expected party has arrived.” Then, “Yes, sir. I’ll let him know.” She hung up and looked at the dignitary himself, eyes ice. “He’ll see you in a moment. You can wait here.”

She didn’t indicate any place for any of them to rest or sit down. The other offices lay beyond, down still more dim corridor, their open doors the only sign that they were part of Mycroft’s hive of busy, busy bees. Anyone in those rooms could hear anything that happened here, at the Queen Bee’s cell.

Greg, who knew better than most how these things worked, was quite sure that phones were being dialed, and lesser queen bees alerted to changing circumstances. Spy tools were being set to do their appropriate job of spying.

The man and his court stood, shuffling, out of place, thrown off balance. The High Holy Dandelion grumbled under his breath and suggested, sharply, that he was a busy man with things to do, and perhaps Mr. Holmes might get a wiggle-on. Anthea’s eyes opened and closed, once, in stately fashion, like a sphynx eyeing a doomed karmic traveler, picking out just the right riddle to allow her to eat the bastard. She did not say that Mr. Holmes did not get a wiggle on—and certainly not for the likes of his Respected Lint-Head.

They waited, not because his Dignitary-ness wanted to, but because he had no choice.

A good fifteen minutes had passed before the green door opened, and Mycroft Holmes stood in it.

“Sir,” he said, voice chill and controlled, and completely unsubmissive. He stepped to one side and gestured the dignitary in. “Just him,” he said to the remainder of the courtiers. Then flicked a glance at Anthea. “Leave the door open,” he said. “After today I need the ventilation.”

Greg fought back a wicked smirk. Oh, my-my. The Great and Near-Great had annoyed his lover quite badly, over the past hours, days, weeks, months, years, hadn’t they?

All down the hall, he knew people listened. With technical aid, with plain mortal ears, with drinking glasses held up to thin walls, with bated breath, with recording instruments on, with open phone lines sucking down what would come next…

There was a querulous murmur from within—something about highest priority, clearance, and privacy, pronounced with a very, very proper “priv-acy,” rather than a more slack “prie-vacy.” No doubt a request about that open door. His High Holy Bombast didn’t want this overheard, or to see his comedown witnessed.

Mycroft’s voice, clear and carrying, said, simply. “No. Now—what are you here for?”

Murmur-murmur-murmur.

A pause. “Why?”

Murmur-murmur-murmur. The fate of the nation. The freedom of Great Britain. The future generations to come. The good of the economy.

“I think not, sir. If, after all this time, you have been unable to establish this to parliament and the citizens of the nation, it is hardly for me to impose your will in spite of them.”

A squall of authoritarian rage. A threat—not direct, but unmistakable.

Silence. Then. “No. No, I don’t think I will. Now if you’re done, I have real work to attend to, followed by a dinner reservation with my spouse.”

Squall.

Greg, fighting back giggles, heard the snort of affronted dignity all the way out in the hall. No doubt so did half the deep state civil service in London, and quite a few of the more stable appointees and dignitaries who kept the wheels of government running. He knew that snort. Mycroft had polished it to dramatic perfection on Sherlock over the decades. He knew the tone of adamant authority that struck back at the High and Mighty Mucketty-Muck.

“Manners, sir! And no. I will not. Now kindly vacate my offices. You are neither needed nor wanted here.”

The unsaid conviction that the man was not needed or wanted anywhere on God’s green earth echoed through the halls of power, carried on whispers and on wires, in memos and in code, reported as far away as Gallifrey, and as nearby as the busy bees of Mycroft’s own division.

His Humpty-Dumptyness fell, and all his horses and all his men, and his tiny little coven of meek ladies in waiting could not put him together again, so he left leaking fuss and bother and bitter resentment all the way down the corridor, up the stairs and lifts, back into the real world that had already sent him scuttling down into the tunnels in a panic.

Applause can be silent. This applause was. Rather than pattering palms, there was a moment of complete peace. Then, like mice creeping out from their hiding places after the cat is gone, one merry-faced deep-government cog after another slipped out, and as they passed each other, they exchanged glances of pride. Their boss was Mycroft Holmes, who called the nation’s elected hounds to heel, and set the curs in their places!

It was another half-hour before Mycroft came out of his office, coat over his arm, umbrella and briefcase in hand. He smiled at Anthea, turned and locked the green door behind him, murmured a few instructions, and strode down the way to Greg, who still sat relaxed and at ease on his bench.

“Ready, my dear?”

“Yep. You?”

“Quite. You have no idea what a day it’s been!”

Greg grinned. “Watched them all march up and down this hall all afternoon, love. Got an idea. And even if I didn’t, I read the news. Parliament took that fat ferret down a peg, didn’t they?”

“As was their duty,” Mycroft sniffed.

“And…what did you have to do with putting that in play?”

Mycroft’s blue-grey eyes shone with innocence. “Why Greg! I am a loyal servant of the crown and the kingdom. Whatever would I have to do with…with…what would you call them? Conspiracies? Schemes? No, my dear. Nothing at all.”

“And the calls you have been taking from half of London for ages now?”

“I am a professional. I know people. I introduce men and women who might perhaps share interest. Nothing more, my dear. Nothing more would be proper.”

Greg studied his husband, and smiled to himself. No doubt it was true. No doubt Mycroft could prove it was true. And, yet…

The spider in her web could not match Mycroft, with his phone calls and his little introductions, with the men he invited for a quick scotch at the Diogenes, the women he suggested should join the same women-only gym where they could talk in peace, the men and women from different counties he sent little invitations to little bureaucratic do-s, where they would eat catered food and drink cheap wine, and gather around the paid bar and make connections, none of it outside the pale, and not a word of collusion or plotting going on between anyone at Mycroft’s level: just the ordinary mannerly forms of good government, after all. And, yet…

“You are the Lion of England, mate,” Greg said, with a huge grin. “Michael with his sword. Now—where’s dinner, eh?”

“I thought perhaps the chippies down near Hounslow, with the fried scallops and the splendid mushy peas,” Mycroft said. “Pick up what we like and take them home to eat while you watch your game.”

“Not too low-brow for you, love?”

Mycroft smiled. “No, my dear. Never. It is, after all, England. The great traditions must be maintained.” And he took his husband’s hand and walked them out to where the sleek jaguar awaited them.


End file.
